Pages

A sneak peak at Helen of Pasadena

I'll be reviewing Helen of Pasadena by Lian Dolan tomorrow, but I wanted to share a little about the book to tease you, so the author has graciously allowed me to post the first chapter to tease you all!

Now
I knew: I’d get a full church at my funeral. What a relief. It was the kind of
thing I lost sleep over at night, being a planner and all. How many times had I
sat at funerals, counting the hundreds (or, more depressingly, dozens) of
mourners in the pews and thought, Who
would showfor me? Do people like me
more or less than Jane’s mother?Do I
know a hundredpeople who would care?
Two hundred?Who should cater?
Now I had my answer: full church. Because if this many people could show up for
my husband, my late husband, then I’d
get almost this many, right?

One
thing I’d never planned on was my husband dropping a bombshell on me and then
dropping dead.

That
would have been good to know.

At
least Merritt would have been pleased at the standing-room-only situation in
the church. Merritt was a big deal in his world, and to prove that, there were
the partners from the firm and the fraternity brothers, town officials, boards
of schools and organizations, a Pasadena who’s who. Merritt’s people, many of
whom he had known his whole, short life.

But
there were lots of my people, too: the thin, young mothers from Millington
School turned out in their best black suits, Prada purses and Tory Burch flats
despite the economic downturn; the formerly thin team moms from a decade on the
sidelines of every sport from basketball to soccer; the lovely sustaining
members of the Symphony Guild, whispering together in the back rows about
losing such a big donor in such a tough time; the handsome dads from water polo
contemplating if they’ll be next. Half of them longing for a drink; the other
half wondering who did the flowers. Their presence meant the world to me.

I
was shocked by Merritt’s death, maybe even in shock. But I was not devastated.
I was relieved.

Very,
very relieved.

“It’s
a tragedy when a husband is taken from his wife, when a father is taken from
his son, when a son is taken from his mother, when a citizen is taken from his
community, as Merritt Fairchild was taken from his lovely wife, Helen, his
brave son, Aiden, his adoring mother, Mitsy, and his beloved hometown of
Pasadena,” sang out Monsignor Flaherty, working his Irish brogue and his gift
of oration from the altar of St. Perpetua’s, the most socially progressive and
socially acceptable Catholic church in town.

Merritt
had donated the altar. That’s the kind of big, public gesture he liked to make.
It was a simple, hand-carved mahogany altar influenced by the Mission at San
Luis Obispo. Merritt had asked me to do the research and make the
recommendation to the Church Restoration Committee. It was all a little
contrived for me, but I’d risen to the occasion, loving history and
architecture as I do. I still preferred to slip an anonymous $25 in the
envelope at collection. Merritt never understood that. “Why give a little every
week when we could just write one big check at the annual auction?” he’d say.

The
Monsignor was a cult figure, inspiring the kind of following that most Catholic
priests could only dream of these days. Maybe it’s because he understood the
power of myth, because he was certainly spinning one now.

“Merritt
Fairchild will be missed,” continued the Monsignor. “His sense of generosity,
his sense of humor, his sense of dignity. This is a man who will be missed.”

Thank
you, Monsignor, on behalf of my son, who will miss him, even though he never
knew him that well. Or maybe precisely because
he did not know him well. I squeezed Aiden’s hand. How did he get so big? Not
20th percentile anymore, so I guess all that worrying paid off. Thirteen years
old and now he has no father.After two
days of alternating between sobbing and silence, Aiden looked surprisingly
strong, sitting there in his itchy Nordstrom suit that I barely even remember
buying, even though it was only two days ago. My God, what a two days it had
been! I thought you were supposed to get five stages of grief; I got about 36
hours.

Hold
it together and get through this performance.

“He
was a man who honored his commitments deeply.”

Until
he didn’t. I used to be in love with my husband—really, really in love. When I
first moved to Pasadena to become Mrs. Merritt Fairchild, I thought I was the
luckiest girl in town. Marriage to Merritt meant stability and social status,
something I never had growing up. Central Oregon wasn’t too big on cotillions
and country clubs. Who needed to socialize in formalized groups when there was
plenty of pot and bootleg Grateful Dead tapes to share? My parents meant no
harm, but, really, a life selling macramé and scented oils out of a VW camper
van was not for me. I read everything I could get my hands on, from Walker
Percy to The Preppy Handbook, made
good grades and got out of Jerry Garciaville as soon as I could.

Enter
Merritt Fairchild, a straight-arrow Berkeley law student in a blue blazer and
khakis. I was an archaeology grad student who was working at the food co-op
when Merritt strolled down my aisle, solid, graceful and slightly sweaty after
a game of Ultimate Frisbee. Merritt feigned interest in the eternal question:
quinoa vs. bulgur. After he asked me out, I actually looked over my shoulder to
see if there was a sorority girl behind me. I loved it when he introduced me to
his law school buddies as his “yurt-raised hippie chick” or his “genius
Greek-speaking goddess.” Like he appreciated my past but believed in a future
free of weekend craft fairs. When he asked me to marry him six months later,
despite his mother’s objections to my unorthodox upbringing and my parents’
objection to his conventional upbringing, Merritt was my hero.

I sailed through
the early years, thinking how very clever I was to have found Merritt and given
him a healthy, strapping baby boy. Merritt was a solid citizen in the solid,
suburban town of Pasadena, home of the Rose Parade, the Norton Simon Museum,
Caltech, Greene and Greene homes and old money. Old, old money. The kind of
credentials that could only be sexy if you grew up in a town like Sisters,
Oregon, which had more bead stores than banks and featured “art” galleries full
of tree trunks shaped into beavers by chain saws.

Merritt was busy
building up a law firm and then making the switch into capital investments; I
was busy building friendships and navigating the social waters with complete
naiveté. I happily traded in my grad-student status for membership in the young
mothers’ club of Pasadena. I think it was the car. Not admirable, but I loved
that Volvo. It was new and shiny and not at all like the rusty relics I’d seen
at the Oregon textile symposiums of my youth. That car was the most beautiful
shade of blue. Hello, keyless remote entry. Goodbye, archetypes of the feminine
in classical mythology.

I’ll
just take a few years off, I thought once I was pregnant. I’m only 26, I’ll
finish that thesis someday. But for now I had money to raise for the new
children’s museum. Merritt used to laugh, amazed that I was asked to be on the
board at Kidseum with my natural-fiber past and subscription to Biblical Archaeology magazine. He’d
tease me in front of his clients, but all in good fun, I’d thought. But in the
last few years, the teasing had stopped being funny. It had started to feel
real.

Still, that was no reason to feel relief at
his death.

“Merritt Fairchild
was the kind of man who inspired others to be their best, raise their game,
achieve more. He brought out the best in those around him.”

Or
their insecurities. Should I have I paid more attention to social obligations?
Or my grooming? Or any of the other minutiae the mattered to Merritt? I’ll
never know now.

“It
is fitting that a man who gave so much to his community should die in service
to the organization that he loved so much.” Monsignor let it go at that, but I
thought I heard snickers. A manicured hand squeezed my shoulder warmly, then my
friend Candy McKenna, scented by Michael Kors and coiffed by Stephen of Stephen
Stephens Salon, whispered in my ear, “Jackie Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, Jackie
Kennedy.” My Candy-recommended mantra for the next few days. Be the stoic
widow, Candy directed. I conceded to Candy in matters like this.

Candy
had a profound sense of the appropriate, being a former Rose Queen, the
pinnacle of teenage social success in Pasadena. Out of thousands, literally
thousands, of fresh-faced candidates, Candy was chosen to reign. Rising to the
top of the Rose Court through excessive grooming, academic achievement and
community service is usually a prelude to a charmed life in TV news or
charitable works. Candy had been a spectacular Rose Queen, squeezing every
ounce of extra camera time and connections out of her moment in the sun.

Then
came the fall.

She
called it “an unfortunate case of misjudgment,” her Vanessa Williams incident
in the late ‘80s. Candy had taken her 1987 reign as Rose Queen right to the Ivy
League, only to discover that no one at Brown cared that she’d worn a diamond
crown and waved to millions on New Year’s morning. Being Pasadena’s Rose Queen
meant nothing to the jaded East Coast undergrads of Providence, Rhode Island,
especially to her roommate, a women’s studies major with a minor in comparative
feminist lit. By her sophomore year, long after her official reign ended, Candy
was desperate to reclaim her status. So, in “an unfortunate case of
misjudgment,” Candy posed for Playboy’s
Women of the Ivy Leagues issue. Back then, a naked photo was shocking, not like
today, where every beauty queen has some X-rated video posted on the Internet.
Once the Tournament of Roses caught wind of her, umm, exposure, she was
shunned. Not officially tossed out of the Tournament family, but not welcomed back
for reunions either. Candy reeled, transferred back to UCLA to plead her case
and wound up the black sheep of the Rose Queens.

Now,
twice divorced with two kids, the same killer body she had in high school and a
midcentury modern house on Linda Vista, she made her living as a digital media
maven, running the hugely popular gossip and entertainment site,
candysdish.com. She covered events and news stories from all over Los Angeles,
including Hollywood. But she paid the rent with her local stories. Candy spilled
about everything that matter to Pasadenans, from proper black tie events to
preschool blackballing. She was respected, fawned over and feared. On the
inside, but not quite.

Candy,
true to her Rose Court training, had rushed to my side when she heard the news
about Merritt. God, everyone in town had heard the news before the Rose Parade
was even over. How could you not read the headlines? Rose Parade Volunteer
Killed by Float. And underneath, the details unfolded: Police Investigate
Collision of Scooter and Giant Panda Float Sponsored by the Chinese Tourism
Board.

In the 112-year
history of the parade, no Tournament of Roses volunteer, or White Suiter, as
they are known to locals because of the white suits and red ties they wear on
New Year’s Day, had ever been killed during the actual parade. The White
Suiters were CEOs and lawyers and bankers with deep social connections and a
sense of civic duty, hand-chosen to oversee the parade, the football game and
the myriad of events associated with the Tournament of Roses. They knew how to
handle rain, cold, flower shortages, war protesters, crowds of millions—but a
Death by Float? New territory for these pillars of society.

“Making Lasting Memories” was this year’s Rose
Parade theme, and Merritt certainly did, as he plowed his official Honda
scooter into the oncoming panda. He was texting at the time, but only I knew
that.

And
only I knew to whom.

Stop back tomorrow to see my reaction to Helen of Pasadena and to find out more about the book and the author!

This post and tomorrow's review are a stop on Lian Dolan's Virtual Book tour with Pump Up Your Book